(1620) somnium or the dream- johannes kepler

7/31/2019 (1620) Somnium or the Dream- Johannes Kepler

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Somnium (Latin for The Dream) is a fantasy written between 1620 and 1630 by

Johannes Kepler in which a student of Tycho Brahe is transported to the Moon by

occult forces. It is considered the first serious scientific treatise on lunar

astronomy.

Somnium began as a student dissertation in which Kepler defended the

Copernican doctrine of the motion of the Earth, suggesting that an observer on

the Moon would find the planet's movements as clearly visible as the Moon's

activity is to the Earth's inhabitants. Nearly 20 years later, Kepler added the

dream framework, and after another decade, he drafted a series of explanatory

notes reflecting upon his turbulent career and the stages of his intellectual

development. The book was edited by his heirs, including Jacob Bartsch, after

Kepler's death in 1630, and was published posthumously in 1634.

Kepler's Somnium: Science Fiction and the RenaissanceScientistIn 1634, four years after his death, the most provocative and innovative of Johannes Keplersworks was published by his son Ludwig Kepler, then a candidate for the doctorate inmedicine. In one form or another, the manuscript had been the elder Keplers constantcompanion since his student days at Tbingen University where his introduction to theheliocentric system, revived from the ancient Greeks by the Polish astronomer NicholasCopernicus, had prompted Kepler to devote one of his required dissertations to the question:

"How would the phenomena occurring in the heavens appear to an observer stationed on themoon?" The theses propounded by Kepler at Tbingen in 1593 contained, in the words of hisGerman biographer Max Caspar, "the first germ of a work which we shall come to know asthe last of the books he published," the Somnium orDream.1

It had been Keplers intent to personally supervise the publication of his manuscript and, atthe time of his sudden death in 1630, six pages of the document were in type. Jacob Bartsch,Keplers son-in-law, undertook the task of completing publication but he, too, died suddenlybefore it was finished. The project might well have been abandoned at this point had notKepler left his widow in dire financial straits. In an attempt to assist his mother during thiseconomic crisis, son Ludwig brought the thin volume to press in 1634. In accordance with themedieval-classical traditionbroken only by Keplers contemporary Galileo, whooccasionally published in the vernacularthe original edition was in Latin. Over twocenturies passed before a second Latin edition was published in 1870 in volume eight of theOpera Omnia, a collection of Keplers works edited by Christian Frisch. This was followed in1898 by a rather poor and quite obscure German paraphrase under the title Keplers TraumVon Mond by Ludwig Gunther. Except for these two limited editions and a few survivingcopies of the original printing, a seminal work in science fiction remained a literary curiosityfor over three centuries, read only by those few authors with a strong interest in the new genreand possessed of the classical background required to read the work in its original Latin.

It is difficult to appreciate to any degree this last work of a great theoretician and scientistwithout knowing something of the circumstances surrounding its authorship, a task which

spanned some thirty-seven years. For the time in which he lived Keplers lunar exploration isa truly remarkable and revolutionary work, and in the view of historian Lewis Mumford must
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Keplerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Bartschhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Keplerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Bartschhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin


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be appreciated for "the audacity of the concept" as well as for its intrinsic merit as apioneering work of science fiction.2

There is little, if anything, in the background and early childhood of Johannes Kepler tosuggest that this son of a neer-do-well mercenary of the Duke of Alba and an innkeepersdaughter, who was nearly burned at the stake as a witch, would become a central figure in the

seventeenth-century scientific revolution in astronomy. Kepler was born and spent hischildhood in Weil-der-Stadt, a small Swabian village located in southwestern Germany. Helived in the crowded cottage home of his paternal grandfather, Sebaldus Kepler, along withaunts, uncles and numerous brothers and sistersthe latter of whom biographer ArthurKoestler collectively refers to as "this misshapen progeny."3

Through some favorable natural phenomena, not yet completely understood by modernscience, Johannes was endowed at birth with the gift of genius while the rest of his brothersand sisters suffered from severe mental and physical handicaps. Kepler, himself, was notentirely immune to the family curse of physical infirmity, for he was bow-legged, frequentlycovered with large boils, and suffered from congenital myopia and multiple vision. The latteraffliction must have been particularly distressing to one whose love of the heavens defined hiscareer. Johannes special intellectual endowment was apparent from an early age however,and fortunately those responsible for his education wanted the gift to be as fully developed aspossible. Consequently, Kepler was enrolled at Tbingen University, and it was there that thefirst seeds of the Somnium, published some forty years later, were sown.

Kepler was an excellent student in all fields of study including theology, but he worked mostdiligently and happily on astronomical questions. It was his good fortune to matriculate whileMichael Maestlin, one of the most learned and esteemed astronomers of the time, was amember of the Tbingen faculty. In deference to the teachings of Martin Luther and PhillipMelanchton, Luthers advisor on scientific matters, Maestlin, at least in his public lectures,advocated the geocentric system of planetary motion as described by the second century

Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy in his influential treatise theAlmagest.4

Copernicantheory, even when taught on the speculative basis permitted by the Roman Catholic Churchuntil Galileos trial in 1633, was strictly prohibited at the outset by the Lutherans; and amonghis theological colleagues Maestlin was the only advocate of the new astronomy. Privately,however, Maestlin did discuss the heliocentric universe, and apparently his early recognitionof Keplers genius persuaded Maestlin to admit his student to that small circle of intimateswho shared his views. "In the youthful enthusiastic head of his pupil the spark ignited.Maestlins considerations and repressions were alien to the young and unencumbered Keplerwho, open and dauntless, entered into disputation in favor of the new astronomical theory."5

Kepler also learned a good deal of practical astronomy from Maestlin, including the ancientGreek technique of estimating elevations on the moons surface by measuring the shadows

cast by these protuberances. And he began to grapple with the question put at the beginning ofthis paper of how the heavens would appear to an observer standing on the moon. Keplerknew from studying Copernicus that the earth is moving very rapidly. Yet those who inhabitthe planet are unaware of this rapid movement because they are not able to detect it throughthe use of their senses. Kepler quite logically reasoned that a man standing on the moonwould share an identical experience; he could see the earth change position because he wouldnot be a participant in its rotation just as a moonwatcher on earth observes lunar motion inwhich he does not participate. This realization and the complex issues it raised became thebasic theme of Keplers dissertation of 1593 and, quite inadvertently, the generative forceunderlying the first work of modern science fiction.

Had the Tbingen faculty been more tolerant of the new astronomy, the theses presented inKeplers dissertation would have been publicly debated and probably long forgotten. Howeverwhen the proposal was presented to the authorities for their approval, they vetoed the debate.


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One of Keplers closest friends and a fellow student, Christoph Besold, who later became anoted professor of law at Tbingen, appealed to his professor and advisor, Vitus Mller, topermit him, rather than Kepler, to uphold the theses in a disputation; but after considering thematter, Mller refused. The fact that Besold requested to debate Keplers theses suggusts thatthe authorities might have known of the close Kepler-Maestlin relationship, and that Kepler

and his friend considered it more likely that Mller and his colleagues would reach afavorable verdict if Besold, a law student, led the debate.

Kepler was no doubt disappointed and perhaps even somewhat bitter about the decision; yethe was also realistic enough to know that to further protest his fate, when even his highlyrespected professor of astronomy was condemned to public silence on matters Copernican,would be foolhardy and perhaps damaging to his career. Still, there was sufficient grit toproduce a pearl. Kepler wisely decided to keep his manuscript until the time when a morefavorable climate of opinion might prevail. He also wanted to do more research, particularlyon the Greek classics, and to discover any possible precedents in them that would make hiswork more palatable to the Aristotelians.

The student dissertation of 1593 was left untouched by its author for the next sixteen years.Meanwhile, Keplers career as a mathematician-astronomer flourished. He was graduatedfrom the Faculty of Arts at Tbingen at the age of twenty and enrolled at the TheologicalFaculty of the University to continue preparing for his chosen vocationthat of a Lutheranclergyman. His reputation as an excellent mathematician followed him however; and theTbingen Senate offered Kepler the position of teacher of mathematics and astronomy inGratz, the sleepy capital of the Austrian province of Styria. Fearing himself unworthy of sucha post, Kepler reluctantly accepted the offer only after considerable coaxing: his plans for acareer in theology were permanently abandoned. The choice proved a good one; the youngmathematician became a respected teacher and he apparently enjoyed his new surroundings,for Kepler remained in Gratz until January of 1600. The rather obscure town provided few

distractions from scholarly pursuits, and, since his classes were small, Kepler hadconsiderable free time to devote to mathematics and astronomy.

At the age of twenty-five he published his first book, theMysterium Cosmographicum, whichis a brilliant if highly mystical and error-prone amalgam of Aristotelian and Copernicancosmology.6 The work attracted the attention of the great Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe,who was deeply impressed by Keplers synthesis of the old and new astronomy.7 Thisfavorable impression ultimately led Brahe to offer Kepler a position as his assistant after theDane was appointed Imperial Mathematician by the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph II.

Kepler worked with Brahe from early 1600 until the latters death in November 1601, afterwhich Kepler succeeded to the post of his teacher. Equally important is the fact that after asquabble with Tychos heirs, Kepler inherited the astronomers observational data,

unparalleled for its accuracy, on the oppositions of Mars between 1580 and 1600. It wasthrough the mathematical analysis of Brahes observations that Kepler arrived at his famouslaw of ellipses in 1605. The conclusions derived from this law provided the basis for his mostimportant scientific work,Astronomia Nova, published in 1609, the same year in which hisinterest in the forgotten dissertation of his student days was rekindled.

In his capacity as Imperial Mathematician Kepler resided in Prague, then the capital of theHoly Roman Empire. During the summer of 1609, he became involved in a series of longconversations with his friend and ecclesiastical advisor to Emperor Rudolph, Wackher vonWackenfels. Rudolph had asked Kepler his views regarding the patterns of light and shadowsappearing on the lunar surface: the emperor had personally concluded that they are formed bythe reflection off the moon of major land masses located on the earth. In effect, Rudolph wasadvocating a somewhat modified version of the Aristotelian position and he wanted to know ifKepler agreed with him.


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Kepler, of course, did not agree with his patron because as far back as his student days he hadknown that the shadows on the moon were caused by mountains or other naturaloutcroppings. It was a conclusion reinforced by years of additional study and observation bothon his own and under Tychos tutelage. While not an expert on the matter himself, Wackherwas interested in Keplers views and encouraged his friend to publish them. Keplers lifelong

intrigue with lunar geography combined with Wackhers interest resulted in the compositionof the Somnium, a greatly modified version of his student dissertation.8

There can be little, if any, doubt that Kepler selected the framework of theDream to satisfytwo major demands: first, fewer objections could be raised among the ranks of those stillwithin the Aristotelian orbit by passing off this Copernican treatise as a figment of an idleslumberers uncontrollable imagination; and secondly, it enabled Kepler to introduce amythical agent or power capable of transporting humans to the lunar surface. In fact to thecursory reader, Kepler must have appeared more mythographer than speculative scientist, andthis is the very impression the author intended.9

The Somnium begins like a classical legend and relates the authors "dream" about theadventures of a young man, Duracotus, a native of an island called "Thule" by the ancients,Iceland by seventeenth-century Europeans. Duracotus father, a fisherman by trade, died at theextremely advanced age of 150, but the child was still too young to have any recollection ofhim. Fiolxhilde, the mother, is a "wise woman," who supports both her son and herself bygathering herbs which are then cooked, stuffed in little bags of goatskin, and sold at a nearbyport to sailors. The bags supposedly harbor mysterious lucky charms and the healing powersrequired by seamen on the long and always dangerous voyages across the north Atlantic. Oneday, out of curiosity," Duracotus cut open one of the bags his mother intended to sell to aships captain, scattering its contents on the ground. In a fit of anger Fiolxhildes temper gotthe best of her and she sold her son to the captain in place of the lost herbs.

The following day, the captain set sail for Norway but he stopped in Denmark to deliver a

letter from a bishop in Iceland to the astronomer Tycho Brahe, who then resided on the islandof Hveen in the Sund between Copenhagen and Elsinore Castle. Duracotus became quite illduring the voyage (apparently he carried no bag of his mothers charms), and he was putashore when Tychos letter was delivered. The astronomer questioned the boy at some length,considered him to be quite intelligent, and undertook to train him in the science of astronomy.Duracotus response is enthusiastic: "I was delighted beyond measure by the astronomicalactivities, for Brahe and his students watched the moon and the stars all night with marvelousinstruments."10

After spending five years in Tychos company Duracotus took his masters leave and sailedfor home. He found Fiolxhilde much as she was when he left, except that the old woman hadsuffered terribly as a result of her impetuosity and was overjoyed to see her son alive and

well. A number of long discussions ensued during which Fiolxhilde expressed happiness overDuracotus acquaintance with the new science of the stars. She confesses to her own specialknowledge of the heavens and the fact that her teacher is none other than the "Daemon ofLavania"the spirit of the moon. "Most of the things which you saw with your own eyes orlearned by hearsay or absorbed from books, he related to me as you did." The mother thenreveals her ultimate secret: it is possible, with the assistance of the Daemon, to travel toLavania and, quite predictably, she asks her son to accompany her on just such a lunarvoyage. Duracotus consents and "as soon as the sun set below the horizon, and was inconjunction with the planet Saturn in the sign of the Bull, Fiolxhilde summoned the Daemonand seated herself next to her son who covered their heads with a blanket. Within a fewmoments the journey of "fifty thousand German miles" had begun, up through the ethereal

regions to the moon.


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Up to this point there is little which separates the Somnium from a long literary traditionrooted in the imagination of the ancient Greeks. After his rebuff at the hands of the Tbingenfaculty Kepler had purchased a copy of Lucians satirical work on lunar explorationfacetiously titled,A True Story. From a scientific point of view the work made no sense:Lucians voyage to the moon begins in a whirlwind and concludes by poking fun at the

society of his day through a chronicle of "hilarious discussions on the moon." The flight ofDuracotus and Fiolxhilde is also the result of supernatural forces that are no less mystical thanthe whirlwind conjured up by Lucian.

A second, and more important source of inspiration for Keplers moon voyage was PlutarchsThe Face on the Moon, which Kepler read in 1595. It is a symposium of Greek scientificthought that includes the views of Hipparchus, Aristotle, and Aristarchus of Samos. Extensivespeculation on the lunar environment as a possible home for life is presented; and Plutarcheven relates the story of a mythical travelera Greek Duracotuswho sails to an islandwhose residents have knowledge of the passage to the moon.12 Kepler now had the classicalprecedent he lacked during his student days: he even hoped to publish translations both ofLucians and Plutarchs work with the Somnium to show his debt to these classical writers,

and hopefully blunt potential criticism of his own moon voyage.13 It was a task he did notcomplete.

While Keplers method of flight to the moon is not markedly different from that outlined byLucian, and although much of his inspiration for lunar exploration is undeniably Plutarchian,the Somnium represents a sharp break with classical tradition; the first intimation of whichoccurs during the voyage itself. We are informed that the flight of four hours is "most difficultand fraught with the greatest danger to life." Only those who are slender of body areacceptable, thus ruling out most German males whose general corpulence was apparentlydistasteful to the slender Kepler. In jest Kepler carried the matter further by pointing out theDaemons preference for "dried-up old women, experienced from an early age in riding he-

goats at night or forked sticks or threadbare cloaks." It was to prove a most costly joke for, aswe shall see, it later backfired on its author whose own mother was accused of practicingwitchcraft by superstitious neighbors and nearly burned at the stake by the authorities.

The take-off for the moon hits the traveler as a severe shock, "for he is hurled just as thoughhe had been shot aloft by gunpowder to sail over mountains and seas." In order to counteractwhat Isaac Newton would later define as the force of gravity, the moon voyagers are put tosleep with the aid of opiates and their limbs are arranged in such a way that their bodies willnot be torn apart by the force of acceleration.14 Since breathing is inhibited by the swiftpassage of extremely cold air through the nostrils, damp sponges are applied to the face.Within a short time the speed of flight becomes so great that the body involuntarily rolls itselfup into a ball like an endangered spider and "we are carried along almost entirely by our will

alone, so that finally the bodily mass proceeds toward its destination of its own accord:"Kepler had introduced the concept of "inertia" to the physical sciences and had extended itsoperation into the heavens.

Kepler anticipates another major obstacle to the moon voyager when he observes that weagreed not to begin "until the moon begins to be eclipsed on its eastern side. Should it regainits full light while we are still in transit, our departure becomes futile." In other words, Keplerknew that once outside the protective blanket provided by the earths atmosphere, humanscould not survive the resulting solar bombardment: the flight must begin at the criticalmoment when the sun is behind the earth or at a point directly opposite the point of take-off.During a lunar eclipse the earths shadow would provide the tunnel of darkness required toprotect the vulnerable moon voyager; and it is not by accident that the maximum duration of

such an eclipse is four and one-half hours, just one-half hour more than the duration of thevoyage itself.15 A further indication of Keplers mastery of Copernican astronomy is his


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understanding that since the earth and the moon are both in motion, the shortest route to thelatter would not be the straight line advocated by such ancient writers of mythology asLucian, but a trajectory from earth to a point in space where the moon and the lunar voyagerswould arrive simultaneously.16

Kepler also relates that many additional difficulties arise during the lunar voyage which are

too tedious to enumerate. We are already aware, however, that Kepler possessed a keen graspof the most serious obstacles to lunar flight and that even though those obstacles were beyondsolution in terms of the technological equipment of his age, he believed it was at leasttheoretically possiblefrom a scientific point of viewfor men to reach the moon. It is thisattitude that sets Kepler apart from all the others who considered the possibility of lunar flightbefore him.

Upon reaching the surface of Lavania the voyagers are weary, but soon recover sufficiently towalk about. The Daemon immediately guides his charges to a cave in order to protect themfrom the penetrating rays of the rising sun. There they meet other daemons and have theopportunity to recuperate from the effects of their arduous journey before beginning areconnaissance of the moons geography, flora, and fauna. They are informed by their spiritualhosts that Lavania consists of two hemispheres: Subvolva and Privolva. Subvolva always hasits Volva (Earth) above which corresponds to the earths satellite, the moon, while Privolva isforever deprived of the sight of Volva.17 Taken together, a night and a day on Lavania areequivalent to one month on earth providing alternating two-week periods of intense, scorchingheat followed by a cold unimaginable on this planet. The extremes of temperature in theSubvolvan hemisphere are mitigated to some extent because of Volvas presence which has amoderating influence on the climate. Geographically, the surface of the moon possesseseverything that is on earth, but on a grossly exaggerated scale: the mountains reachunbelievable heights while the fissures, valleys, and craters plunge to precipitous depthsunknown in the terrestrial realm.

Of equal interest to the student of science fiction is Keplers detailed analysis of the life formsthat inhabit Lavania. His powers of scientific deduction were matched by a fertile and realisticimagination when postulating biological conditions on the moon. Although he was trained asan astronomer and mathematician, Kepler was too good a scientist not to understand that thedual effects of the lunar climate and the irregular, hostile terrain would produce plants andanimals far different from those that inhabit the earth. He rejected the temptation, whichothers had not, of simply recreating a terrestrial civilization on the moon; for in KeplersLavania there are no men and women, no civilization as he knew it. Thus nearly two centuriesbefore Buffon, Lyell, and Darwin, Kepler had grasped the close interrelationship between lifeforms and their natural environment.

Whatever is born on the moon attains a monstrous size: growth is extremely rapid, dictating a

very short life span by terrestrial standards. Since there are no towns the "Privolvans have nofixed abode, no established domicile." They are nomadic creatures who roam in crowds overtheir entire hemisphere:

Some use their legs, which far surpass those of our camels; some resort to wings; and somefollow the receding water in boats; or if a delay of several more days is necessary, then theycrawl into caves. Most of them are divers; all of them draw their breath very slowly; henceunder water they stay down on the bottom.

Kepler considered the natural protection of large bodies of water and of caves asindispensable to an environment whose temperatures far exceed those of the hottest regionson earth. And although he does not elaborate on the subject, he suggests that the lunarinhabitants are not the dumb animals they might at first appear to be. Their ability to constructboats to escape the far-reaching effects of the sun provides evidence of this.


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Feeding is a nocturnal function which, if prolonged until after sunrise, often leads to death.The skin of the moon-dwellers, the majority of whom resemble massive serpents, is spongyand porous and, if exposed to the full force of the sun, becomes scorched and brittle. Foodconsists primarily of plants whose surface "is like rind" and of the carcasses of the largenumber of creatures who die each day. Such is the gigantic race of short-lived creatures that

the historian of literature Marjorie Hope Nicolson likened to those of the antediluvian age onearth: lunar pterodactyls or ichthyosauri that bask for a brief moment in the rising or settingsun, then creep forever into the impenetrable Lavanian darkness.18

At this point the Somnium comes to a rather abrupt and premature conclusion. Kepler informsus that, "A wind arose with the rattle of rain. I returned to find myself and found my headreally covered with the pillow and my body with the blankets," an allusion, no doubt, to thebeginning of the moon voyage when Duracotus and Fiolxhilde covered their heads prior to thetake-off.

The actual text of the Somnium, exclusive of the lengthy footnotes which were completedseveral years later and represent the third and final stage of composition, comprises onlyabout twenty type-written pages. Had the work been published at this point it would havebeen a slender volume indeed; but Kepler clung to his plan to publish it in conjunction withtranslations of Plutarch and Lucian, and then only after it had been circulated among his mosttrusted colleagues in manuscript form. As was noted above, Keplers primary concern waswith the opposition he might provoke among the Aristotelians; he wanted some idea of thetype of reception he could expect.

In 1610, a few months after the text of the Somnium was completed, Kepler received somewelcome and exciting news from Italy. His fellow scientist, Galileo Galilei, had constructed anumber of telescopes and had used them to observe celestial phenomena not visible to thenaked eye. The astounding results were published in Galileos revolutionary little work, TheStarry Messenger, in which the Italian astronomer announced the discovery of sunspots,

Jupiters four moons, countless "new" stars, and most importantlyfrom Keplers point ofviewthe mountains and craters of the moon. Here was visual confirmation of much of whatKepler had theorized in the Somnium, and it marked the beginning of the end of Aristoteliancosmology. Yet Kepler, unlike the overly euphoric Galileo, was realistic enough to know thatthe new discoveries, no matter how revolutionary and enlightening, would not bring about animmediate and universal acceptance of Copernicanism, but at least the Aristotelians wereclearly on the defensive. At this point the future of the new astronomy and of the Somniumlooked almost as bright as the new stars seen for the first time through Galileos telescope.

The lunar geography was probably read privately in manuscript form for the last time in 1610.Through a rather complicated and unfortunate series of events, Kepler lost control of a copyin 1611 and a number of individualsmany of them unknown to Kepler personallygained

access to it, including some that the author would not have approved of. The Somnium waswritten for scientists and was little understood, except on the most superficial level, by thoselacking a scientific background. Kepler suggests that it became the subject of gossip in thetonstrinae, the forerunner to the modern coffeehouse.19 Some of those who knew Kepler andhis family, or at least thought they did, discovered sufficient autobiographical material in themanuscript to feed the fires of ignorance and superstition then engulfing Germany. Theyequated Johannes with Duracotus and made particular note of the similarities betweenKatherine Kepler, the astronomers mother, and Fiolxhilde, the fictional peddler of magiccharms and herbs. Especially damning was the description of Fiolxhilde as a "wise woman" inleague with celestial spirits, nor did Keplers joke about the Daemons preference for oldwitches as traveling companions help. To make matters worse, Katherine Kepler was well

known for her vile temper and generally cantankerous disposition, not to mention the fact thatthe aunt who had cared for her as a child was burned at the stake as a witch. The stage was


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set, charges were leveled, and in 1615 Katherine Kepler was arrested on suspicion ofpracticing witchcraft. In his attempt to evade the scorn of the Aristotelians by concealing hispro-Copernican work in the guise of classical mythology, Kepler had inadvertently set a trapfor himself and his mother, for they had become the unwitting victims of the seventeenth-century European witch-craze.

Johannes Keplers reputation as a noted mathematician-astronomer by no means served as aguarantee that Katherine Kepler would escape the fate of thousands of others who had alreadydied at the stake for their alleged complicity in what authorities envisioned as a mass satanicconspiracy. Kepler was well aware of the seriousness of the charges and he put all else asideto work for Katherines exoneration. A long, tedious, and taxing legal battle resulted: onlyafter five years, part of which his mother spent in prison, was the old woman released; but thedamage had been done. Katherine Kepler died in April of 1622 from causes directlyattributable to the rigors of her imprisonment; her son had been able to do little significantwork while trying to obtain his mothers release; and the publication of the Somnium, at leastfor the present, was out of the question. Historical circumstances, as during his student days atTbingen in 1593, had again deprived Kepler of the opportunity to publicly air his views.

Under these conditions, could it have truly mattered to Kepler whether or not his desire tospeak out had been thwarted by a narrow-minded faculty senate impervious to all scientificinquiry deemed anti-Aristotelian, or a group of superstitious and half-crazed witch-hunterswho had mistaken fantasy for reality?

The tragedy of Katherine Keplers long and painful ordeal weighed heavily upon her son forthe remainder of his life. He felt a deep sense of personal responsibility for the old womansdemise even though any reasonably objective observer could find no grounds for culpabilityon his part. There was little left for Kepler but his work, and he set out to complete a numberof projects postponed by his mothers arrest and imprisonment. Of primary concern was ahandbook of Copernican astronomy without which fellow scientists would not know how to

correlate the laws Kepler derived from Tychos observations with the work of Copernicus toarrive at an operable model of the heliocentric system.20 Another project of importance wasthe planetary position predictions that would confirm the validity of Keplers theory ofelliptical orbits as set forth in the law of 1605. Only after overcoming several major obstacles,which biographer Arthur Koestler likens to the Ten Plagues of Egypt, were theRudolphineTables, named in honor of Keplers deceased patron, brought to press.21

Meanwhile, Kepler returned to the manuscript of the ill-fated Somnium which had beenneglected since 1610. During the last decade of his life, from 1620 to 1630, Kepler wrote the223 footnotes to the Dream which are much longer than the text itself. It is within thesefootnotes that the true scientist stands forth, for they contain the scientific core of the lunargeography. This, the third and last stage of composition, was undertaken as a result of

Keplers dissatisfaction with his scant attention to scientific detail in the earlier version of themanuscript. The point is made by Kepler himself in a letter written to his friend, MatthiasBernegger, dated December 4, 1623:

Two years ago, immediately after my return to Linz I have started to work again on theastronomy of the moon, or rather to elucidate it by remarks.... There are just as manyproblems as lines in my writing, which can only be solved astronomically, physically, orhistorically. But what can one do about this? The people wish that this kind of fun, as theysay, would throw itself around their neck, with cozy arms; in playing they do not wish towrinkle their foreheads. Therefore, I decided to solve the problem myself, in notes orderedand numbered.22

Perhaps because of his mothers ordeal, coupled with the rising popularity of the newastronomy, Kepler no longer feared or even cared about the possible consequences ofpublishing a work founded on Copernican principles. The insecurity that had resulted from


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Keplers lifelong fear of Aristotelian sanctions against his work had finally been overcome.He had paid a price that few men of his or any other generation are willing to pay, and then,

just before the manuscript could be published, death unexpectedly deprived him of thesatisfaction of seeing his long labor in print.

In his analysis of the Somnium Keplers biographer Max Caspar muses over the question:

What would the Dream have been like had Kepler written about a "moon state" the way hiscontemporary, Campanella, composed a "sun state "?23 The question arose at Keplers ownsuggestion in the same letter to Bernegger in which he had outlined his reasons for addingfootnotes to the Somnium. Kepler asks:

Campanella wrote a City of the Sun. What about my writing a "City of the Moon"? Would itnot be excellent to describe the cyclopic mores of our time in vivid colors, but in doing sotobe on the safe sideto leave this earth and go to the moon? More in his Utopia and Erasmusin hisPraise of Folly ran into trouble and had to defend themselves. Therefore let us leave thevicissitudes of politics alone and let us remain in the pleasant, fresh green fields ofphilosophy.24

Caspar considers it unfortunate that Kepler did not carry out his plan; but it is a view thiswriter does not share.25 No one, of course, can know the type of lunar society Kepler mighthave created had he not wanted to stay out of the sticky realm of social and politicalspeculation: he was a genius and of all human qualities none is more unpredictable. Still, it isdifficult to believe that any work of social criticism he might have authored could havematched Keplers contribution either to scientific theory or the new literary genre, sciencefiction. There is little in the historical record to show that he possessed the political insight ofeither a Sir Thomas More or an Erasmus, but everything to show that he was a scientificgenius with few peers. To have turned the Somnium into a polemic for social and politicalreform would have almost certainly detracted from its real value as a unique contribution toscience fiction and might have negated its value in the field of scientific theory as well.

Keplers other major biographer, Arthur Koestler, paints the picture of a man astride the crestof a great "watershed" in Western intellectual history: on the one side is the medieval worldwhere science is dominated by religion and the teachings of the ancient Greeks; on the otherside is the modern world in which science finally becomes a discipline unto itself. Keplerleans one way, then the other; but he can never quite extricate himself from the medievalmentality of the times and cross over onto the plain of modern thought. In many ways it is afair characterization, but one that fails to take sufficient account of the one work thatpreoccupied Kepler off and on for some thirty-seven years and reflects the various stages inhis intellectual maturation as a scientist.

The Somnium is itself a watershed, for it marks both the end of an old era and the beginningof a new one. After his introductory tribute to the classicists, the modern scientist takes

command. The Daemon of Lavania is nothing less than Keplers own subtly masked voicespeaking with confidence and authority about the unlimited possibilities that he, believesscience holds for mankind. Gone is the fantasy-utopian world of Lucian and Campanella; inits place is an imaginative modern work anchored in fact and rich in rational scientific theory.If Keplers little fictional work was to be overlooked by historians of science for over threeand one-half centuries, later writers of cosmic voyages in the seventeenth, eighteenth, andnineteenth centuries did not make the same mistake. The Somnium was known to Jules Verne,H.G. Wells and, I believe, at least indirectly, to such contemporary writers of science fictionas Arthur C. Clarke. Kepler opened the way for a new vision of the universe as the home of aplurality of worlds.26 Seen from the perspective of the twentieth century, there is no reason todispute the assertion that Keplers Dream is the fons et origo of modern science fiction.27

Fortunately, even after the passage of three hundred and fifty years, history has a way ofcorrecting injustice and apportioning credit where it is due. It has not been until the last few


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years that Keplers many works have finally been given the attention merited by their majorcontributions to later scientific and technological developments, not the least of which aretwentieth-century mans lunar voyages.NOTES

1. Max Caspar,Kepler, trans. and ed. C. Doris Hellman (London and New York 1959), pp. 47-48. The full title

of Keplers work is Somnium seu Astronomia Lunari (Dream or Astronomy of the Moon).2. Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine: The Pentagon of Power (New York 1970), p. 46.

3. Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers (London and New York 1959), p. 228.

4. Caspar,Kepler, p. 46.

5. ibid., p. 46.

6. For an excellent analysis of theMysterium see Koestler, The Sleepwalkers, pp. 247-267.

7. Tycho could not quite bring himself to a full embrace of the Copernican system. He accepted the concept ofheliocentrism but retained part of the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic system by theorizing that the planets circle the earthwhich in turn circles the sun.

8. Caspar,Kepler, p. 351. One of the new twentieth-century scholars of the Somnium, Marjorie Hope Nicolson,shares the view that much of the work was written in the summer of 1609. However, Professor Nicolson writes,"there are details which could not possibly have been known to Kepler before the spring of 1610." She is

referring to Galileos publication of The Starry Messenger which made known detailed observations of the lunarsurface with the telescope. It is a point worth keeping in mind, but one which does not significantly alter thehistorical account. See her article "Kepler, the Somnium, and John Donne," inRoots of Scientific Thought, ed. byPhilip P. Wiener and Aaron Noland (New York 1957), p. 310.

9. Translation of the Somnium into English was first undertaken by Joseph Keith Lane, a candidate for theMaster of Arts degree at Columbia University in 1947. The thesis has not been published. The first completepublished translation in English appeared in 1965:Keplers Dream trans. by Patricia Frueh Kirkwood with aninterpretation by John Lear (Berkeley and Los Angeles). A subsequent translation appeared in 1967: KeplersSomnium, trans. with a commentary by Edward Rosen (Madison and London). Unless otherwise noted, I haveemployed the Rosen translation when quoting from the Somnium.

10. The reader may have already surmised that there is a substantial amount of autobiographical material in theSomnium. For example, Keplers father disappeared before his son formed any permanent impression of him; hismother was a collector of herbs; and Kepler was Brahes pupil, although not at Tychos Uraniburg observatory

on Hveen, but in Prague.11. Lear and Kirkwood,Keplers Dream, pp. 42_43.

12. Ibid., p. 45.

13. See Nicolson, "Kepler, the Somnium and John Donne," pp. 322_323.

14. Kepler anticipated the universal law of gravitation later formulated by Sir Isaac Newton, but he lacked boththe mathematical proof and the objectivity necessary to advance beyond the realm of speculation. See Koestler,The Watershed, pp. 336_340 and Rosen,Keplers Somnium, pp. 218_221.

15. Lear and Kirkwood,Keplers Dream, p. 57.

16. Keplers ft. 62.

17. See Keplers ft. 89 and 90.

18. Marjorie Hope Nicolson, Voyages to the Moon (New York 1948), p. 47.

19. ibid., p. 44.

20. The work is titled theEpitome Astronomiae Copernicane, a somewhat misleading rubric for the Epitome is atextbook of the Keplerian system rather than the Copernican system. Koestler, The Sleepwalkers, p. 406.

21. For an account of the difficulties encountered by Kepler see Koestler, pp. 406-411.

22. Carola Baumgardt. Johannes Kepler: Life and Letters with an introduction by Albert Einstein (New York1951), p. 155.


24. Baumgardt, JohannesKepler: Life and Letters, pp. 155-156.


26. It might be argued that this distinction belongs to the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) whosepantheistic teaching encompassed a plurality of worlds distributed throughout an infinite universe. Bruno,however, was a religious mystic who soared into the metaphysical realm unencumbered by the ballast ofscientific thinking which was Keplers constant companion.

27. Nicolson, Voyages to the Moon, p. 41.


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ABSTRACT

Following an account of the painful family circumstances and risks attending the posthumous publication ofSomnium in 1634, this essay contends that the work marks the beginning of a new era. After an initial tribute tothe classicists, the modern scientist takes over. The Daemon of Lavania is nothing less than Keplers own subtlymasked voice, speaking with authority about the unlimited possibilities of science. Gone is the fantasy-utopianworld of Lucian and Campanella; in its place is an imaginative modern work anchored in fact and rich in rational

scientific theory. And if Keplers small-scaled fictional work was overlooked by historians of science for over350 years, writers of cosmic voyages during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries did not makethe same mistake. The Somnium was known to Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and, I believe, to such contemporarywriters as Arthur C. Clarke. Kepler opened the way for a new vision of the universe as a home to a plurality ofworlds; indeed, KeplersDream may be seen as the fons et origo of modern science fiction. Only in the last fewyears have Keplers writings finally been given the attention merited by their historical importance and theircontribution to later scientific and technological developments, including twentieth-century mans lunar voyages.

One of the most important books in the history of science, Kepler's long-overlooked Somnium made a

significant contribution to the study of astronomy. Its unique twofold nature, combining a serious scientific

treatise on lunar astronomy with a fictional narrative about a trip to the moon puzzled seventeenth-century

readers as well as succeeding generations, and the work lapsed into obscurity.

The Somnium begins like a classical legend and relates the authors 'dream' about the adventures of a

young man, Duracotus, a native of an island called Thule by the ancients, Iceland by seventeenth-century

Europeans. Duracotus father, a fisherman by trade, died at the extremely advanced age of 150, but the

child was still too young to have any recollection of him. Fiolxhilde, the mother, is a 'wise woman,' who

supports both her son and herself by gathering herbs which are then cooked, stuffed in little bags of

goatskin, and sold at a nearby port to sailors. The bags supposedly harbor mysterious lucky charms and the

healing powers required by seamen on the long and always dangerous voyages across the north Atlantic.

One day, out of curiosity Duracotus cut open one of the bags his mother intended to sell to a ships captain,

scattering its contents on the ground. In a fit of anger Fiolxhildes temper got the best of her and she sold

her son to the captain in place of the lost herbs.

The following day, the captain set sail for Norway but he stopped in Denmark to deliver a letter from a

bishop in Iceland to the astronomer Tycho Brahe, who then resided on the island of Hveen in the Sund


13/18

between Copenhagen and Elsinore Castle. Duracotus became quite ill during the voyage, apparently he

carried no bag of his mothers charms, and he was put ashore when Tychos letter was delivered. The

astronomer questioned the boy at some length, considered him to be quite intelligent, and undertook to train

him in the science of astronomy. Duracotus response is enthusiastic: "I was delighted beyond measure by

the astronomical activities, for Brahe and his students watched the moon and the stars all night with

marvelous instruments.

After spending five years in Tychos company Duracotus took his masters leave and sailed for home. He

found Fiolxhilde much as she was when he left, except that the old woman had suffered terribly as a result

of her impetuosity and was overjoyed to see her son alive and well. A number of long discussions ensued

during which Fiolxhilde expressed happiness over Duracotus acquaintance with the new science of the

stars. She confesses to her own special knowledge of the heavens and the fact that her teacher is none

other than the "Daemon of Lavania"the spirit of the moon. "Most of the things which you saw with your

own eyes or learned by hearsay or absorbed from books, he related to me as you did." The mother then

reveals her ultimate secret: it is possible, with the assistance of the Daemon, to travel to Lavania and, quite


14/18

predictably, she asks her son to accompany her on just such a lunar voyage. Duracotus consents and "as

soon as the sun set below the horizon, and was in conjunction with the planet Saturn in the sign of the Bull,

Fiolxhilde summoned the Daemon and seated herself next to her son who covered their heads with a

blanket. Within a few moments the journey of 'fifty thousand German miles' had begun, up through the

ethereal regions to the moon.

A second, and more important source of inspiration for Keplers moon voyage was Plutarchs The Face on

the Moon, which Kepler read in 1595. It is a symposium of Greek scientific thought that includes the views

of Hipparchus, Aristotle, and Aristarchus of Samos. Extensive speculation on the lunar environment as a

possible home for life is presented; and Plutarch even relates the story of a mythical travelera Greek

Duracotuswho sails to an island whose residents have knowledge of the passage to the moon.12 Kepler

now had the classical precedent he lacked during his student days: he even hoped to publish translations

both of Lucians and Plutarchs work with the Somnium to show his debt to these classical writers, and

hopefully blunt potential criticism of his own moon voyage.13 It was a task he did not complete.

While Keplers method of flight to the moon is not markedly different from that outlined by Lucian, and

although much of his inspiration for lunar exploration is undeniably Plutarchian, the Somnium represents a

sharp break with classical tradition; the first intimation of which occurs during the voyage itself. We areinformed that the flight of four hours is most difficult and fraught with the greatest danger to life. Only those


15/18

who are slender of body are acceptable, thus ruling out most German males whose general corpulence was

apparently distasteful to the slender Kepler. In jest Kepler carried the matter further by pointing out the

Daemons preference for dried-up old women, experienced from an early age in riding he-goats at night or

forked sticks or threadbare cloaks. It was to prove a most costly joke for, as we shall see, it later backfired

on its author whose own mother was accused of practicing witchcraft by superstitious neighbors and nearly

burned at the stake by the authorities.

The take-off for the moon hits the traveler as a severe shock, for he is hurled just as though he had been

shot aloft by gunpowder to sail over mountains and seas. In order to counteract what Isaac Newton would

later define as the force of gravity, the moon voyagers are put to sleep with the aid of opiates and their limbs

are arranged in such a way that their bodies will not be torn apart by the force of acceleration.14 Since

breathing is inhibited by the swift passage of extremely cold air through the nostrils, damp sponges are

applied to the face. Within a short time the speed of flight becomes so great that the body involuntarily rolls

itself up into a ball like an endangered spider and we are carried along almost entirely by our will alone, so

that finally the bodily mass proceeds toward its destination of its own accord. Kepler had introduced the

concept of inertia to the physical sciences and had extended its operation into the heavens.

Kepler anticipates another major obstacle to the moon voyager when he observes that we agreed not to

begin until the moon begins to be eclipsed on its eastern side. Should it regain its full light while we are still

in transit, our departure becomes futile. In other words, Kepler knew that once outside the protective

blanket provided by the earths atmosphere, humans could not survive the resulting solar bombardment: the

flight must begin at the critical moment when the sun is behind the earth or at a point directly opposite the

point of take-off. During a lunar eclipse the earths shadow would provide the tunnel of darkness required to

protect the vulnerable moon voyager; and it is not by accident that the maximum duration of such an eclipse

is four and one-half hours, just one-half hour more than the duration of the voyage itself.15 A further

indication of Keplers mastery of Copernican astronomy is his understanding that since the earth and the

moon are both in motion, the shortest route to the latter would not be the straight line advocated by such

ancient writers of mythology as Lucian, but a trajectory from earth to a point in space where the moon andthe lunar voyagers would arrive simultaneously.16


16/18

Campanella wrote a City of the Sun. What about my writing a 'City of the Moon?' Would it not be excellent

to describe the cyclopic mores of our time in vivid colors, but in doing soto be on the safe sideto leave

this Earth and go to the Moon? ~ Johannes Kepler.

Kepler's model to explain the relative distances of the planets from the Sun in the Copernican System.

Following an account of the painful family circumstances and risks attending the posthumous publication of

Somnium in 1634, this essay contends that the work marks the beginning of a new era. After an initial

tribute to the classicists, the modern scientist takes over. The Daemon of Lavania is nothing less than

Keplers own subtly masked voice, speaking with authority about the unlimited possibilities of science. Gone

is the fantasy-utopian world of Lucian and Campanella; in its place is an imaginative modern work anchored

in fact and rich in rational scientific theory.

And if Keplers small-scaled fictional work was overlooked by historians of science for over 350 years,

writers of cosmic voyages during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries did not make the

same mistake. The Somnium was known to Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and, I believe, to such contemporary

writers as Arthur C. Clarke. Kepler opened the way for a new vision of the universe as a home to a plurality

of worlds; indeed, Keplers Dream may be seen as the 'fons et origo' of modern science fiction.

sources:depauw.edu, doverpublications.com,depauw.edu

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17/18

Berttelsernas mnresor

Den frsta historien om att resa till mnenDen frsta modrna mnfrdshistorien som fick ngon betydelse skrevs 1865 avfransmannenJules Verne, den hette "De la Terre la Lune" (Frn Jorden till Mnen)Fortsttningen, "Autour de la Lune"(Runt Mnen) kom 1871.

Verne var inte den enda som satt och plitade p historier om resor i rymden under1860-talet, men det var Vernes berttelser som direkt inspirerade flera av frstagenerationens rymdfartsteoretiker.Som litterr genre fanns mnresor med lngt fre Vernes tid, men hur lngt fre?

jw 28.5 1998, uppdat. 08.12.2005

De allra frsta mn-historierna kunde inte skrivas frrn myter och gudaberttelser hade fttvika fr rationella frsk att med iakttagelser och mtningar skapa en vrldsbild.

Fr forntidens mnniska var den jord hon vandrade p en platt skiva med himlavalvet lagdsom en snurrande ostkupa ver. I Homeros' Iliad beskrivs jorden p - och som - denpraktskld smed-guden Hefaistos gr t Achilleus. I Odysseen rkar "den mngfrslagneOdysseus" ut fr alla tnkbara ventyr. En resa till mnen r otnkbar, och frekommer inte.Mnen nmns inte ens.

Under senantiken lyckadesAristarchosfrn Samos (ca.310 - 230 f.Kr) nngng kring 260fre vr tiderknings brjan, anvnda egna mtningar och Euklides d helt nya geometri-sammanstllning till hjlp fr att bestmma de relativa avstnden mellan jorden, mnen och

solen.Aristarchos kom till att strckan solen-mnen var ver 18 men under 20 gnger strckan

mnen-jorden, med ledning av jordskuggans form vidmnfrmrkelser, att mndiameternmste vara drygt 1/3 av jordens. Mnavstndet fick han till kring 80 jordradier. Solensdiameter fick han till 7 gnger jordens, och solens volym fljaktligen 340-faldigt jordensvolym.

Den logiska slutsatsen var att jorden omjligen kunde vara vrldsalltets centrum. Det varfrsta gngen i historien som en mtning hade uppdagat ngot om vrldsalltets byggnad!

I Alexandria bestmde Museion-frmannenEratosthenes (275 - 195 f.Kr) jordens diametertill ett vrde som vi idag anser ngorlunda rtt, och d kunde ocks avstndet till mnen

beskrivas med landsvgsmtt. Mtten visade klart att det mesta av vrldsalltet mste vara tomrymd, med jorden, solen och mnen som mycket sm kroppar i den stora tomheten .


18/18

Plutarchos frn Chaeronea (46 - 120), av oss mest knd som levnadstecknare, skrev venesser. En av dem handlar om det ansikte man ser i mnen. Plutarchos beskriver sin mne somen jord i miniatyr, men bebodd av "daimones", som via de broar sol- och mnfrmrkelsernaupprttar kan beska Jorden. Sokrates "daimon" var en av dem, och Plutarchos misstnkte attoraklet i Delfi hade med mn-demonerna att skaffa.

Och nu r det dags fr de frsta bevarade mnrese-historierna 160 e.Kr. Lukianos frn Samosata (ca.115-200) anvnde gladeligen, 40 r efter Plutarchos frnflle,mnen som en lokal fr ngra av sina satiriska berttelser. I "Alethes Historia" (En sannberttelse) sveper en sjuttionio dygns storm utanfr Herakles stoder ivg berttelsens "jag"med skepp, besttning och allt till mnen. Det ttionde dygnet klarnar vdret och "vi fick ettstort land i luften i sikte, likt en skimrande ."

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 - 1543), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) och Galileo Galilei (1564- 1642) tog upp och frnyade Aristarchos' heliocentriska vrldsmodell. Galilei och Keplerkunde efter 1609 dessutom betrakta mnen genom de frsta teleskopen.

Galileo Galileis brevvn, doctor mathematicus Johannes Kepler, var den, som konstrueradeprototypen till det egentliga astronomiska teleskopet - det som Galilei anvnde var en urtypfr teaterkikare. Kepler var ocks den frste som versatte Lukianos' "Alethes Historia" tilllatin. Kepler skrev drtill en egen mnrese-historia "Somnium" (Drmmen) var den frsta ochbsta bland de nya mnrese-berttelserna som teleskoptittandet lockade fram.

Kepler plitade p Somnium fr sitt hga njes skull, av och till, under mer n ettdecennium. Somnium trycktes frst efter hans dd, p latin r 1632 och p tyska 1634.

Kepler visste att jordens atmosfr inte strcker sig nda till mnen. Men d han inte kndetill ngon fysisk mjlighet att ta sig dit, valde han som vehikel sin fantasi, som han frklddetill en drm.

"P den skimrande n Levania, belgen p femtio tusen tyska mils avstnd i den djupaethern", dvs p mnen, bor, i enlighet med Plutarchos, andevsen, demoner, som kan flyga

mellan jorden och mnen lngs den skuggbro som uppstr vid sol- eller mnfrmrkelser.Man kan tillkalla dessa andar genom att yttra tjugo magiska bokstver (ASTRONOMIACOPERNICANA), och om de r vlvilligt sinnade, kan de lta en astronom flja med p enresa ver. Frutsatt d att astronomens tankevrld inte r alltfr jordbunden och astronomensjlv inte fr korpulent. Pekfingret riktas mot Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), som visserligen ltKepler ta del av sitt superba observationsmaterial, men som s lnge han levde lt dennebetala fr varje smula med gyckel och hn.

Mn-demonerna skyr solens ljus i likhet med astronomerna. Kepler minns sin lkllare iPrag, "varest man p bsta stt observerar solens gng ver meridianen".

Kepler konstaterar att strmmande vatten forslar bort lsmark frn bergen och breder ut detver lgland. Han tycker sig se tecken p att detta mste ha skett p mnen likavl som p

jorden. En idhistoriskt viktig iakttagelse: Den aristoteliska skillnaden mellan de evigahimlarna och frgngelsens Jord existerar inte.

(1620) somnium or the dream- johannes kepler

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